Definitely an issue D, the answer of course is to buy the turbo. Mine was great (in some respects anyway). As I understand it it (IMS) affects 3.4/3.6/3.8 so all iterations of the m96. I've read various things that some are better than others but it seems there have been multiple failures in all.
Certainly I'd think twice about buying one now as a 996/996 is what 18-22k and an engine rebuild is, as has been said, 12k or so, unless you'd do it?
Baz Hart/autofarm/sportsclassic are the known names in the area (engine not geographic) and I dare say there are others.
Ant Antstead did a decent breakdown of the issue on a wheeler dealers I saw with a boxster.
I'd want one with the rebuild done and oddly it doesn't seem to add that much
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2006-PORS...cAAOSwvCReyWox
shame this is a cat car mind but an ebay search of hartech will often bring them up.
I think there was a successful class action in the US regarding it but we don't get that of course.
There is also the RMS, not to be confused with the IMS. The former just being a seal.
And then if that's fine get the bores checked for bore score which will also destroy the engine but it seems the gen 2 engines also suffer from this
It's a bit of a turkey of an engine really!
Speaking to Steve Bull (in Devizes) about it a while back he said they tended to keep workshop space as they came in quite frequently, for investigation at least.
You need the rebuilt ones!